The Danville News

Robert John Andrews

August 6, 2026

“Frodo Lives”

Word Count: 750

 

There is a reason why I reread Tolkien’s “The Lord of Rings,” every few years.  I’ve read from the same edition ever since 1967 when grandma gave me a boxed edition of this Trilogy, complete with maps. Tolkien’s my oasis during dry and thirsty times.  The story renews a haggard soul, especially given the religious themes threaded throughout the entire work:  temptation, hope over doom, how evil cannot reckon on willful powerlessness, how it is the modest, the humble, the ordinary, the sacrificial, who are strongest. 

 

Gandalf gets it when they choose kindred Hobbit companions to help Frodo take the ring and destroy it, mindful that Sauron the Dark Lord -- because he’s so consumed with evil and getting his way -- could never imagine anybody would try to get rid of the ring rather than use it to dominate.  The only measure Sauron knows, says Gandalf, is his own desire for power, and so he judges all hearts. 

 

Reading the story is best.  The movie version doesn’t quite capture Frodo’s determination or courage let alone Tolkien’s religious undertones.  I similarly relish reading the Odyssey nearly annually.  I’m looking forward to seeing the movie, but, still, reading is best.  An elementary school teacher, a member of Grove Church, mentioned how, after reading “Charlotte’s Web” to her class, she made a mistake by showing the animated version.  One little girl was upset by the film, exclaiming: “That’s not what the barn looks like!”  Her imagination was crimped by the illustrator’s depiction. 

 

The virtue of fiction is truth.  For Frodo is the unlikeliest of heroes because he never thought of himself heroic.  That quality is what saved him from submission to the seductive power of the ring of power.  One ring to bind them.  Bind them it did.  Those most vulnerable were the powerful and great who would delude themselves into thinking they could master the ring’s evil influence and use it for their greater good.  It always is the proud whose souls get snared.  Those who seek to control others so their will be done are in turn the quickest controlled by the evil that corrupts and destroys. 

 

Contrariwise, the humble and sensible hobbits show remarkable resistance and resilience against its influence.  Why?  Because they aren’t consumed by the need for selfish power, control, importance.  The center of the universe for a Hobbit, to borrow from Ray Bradbury, is their kitchen.  They value good meals, good company, friendship.  Hobbits make decisions on what is simply the right thing to do, trusting that if they do right, what is right will emerge. The bigly ones are the ones the ring captures and enslaves quickest and easiest.  The ring plays on their egos.  They are easily tempted, easily seduced, easily corrupted because they are so focused on controlling the outcome, on getting. 

 

Pride does indeed “goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”  Simply, the smaller the soul, the greater the conceit.  Or as historian Barbara Tuchman wrote: “Folly is the child of power.”  Or, humorously, from James Thurber:  “Don’t let the chip on your shoulder be your only reason for walking erect.

 

After all, we all got to get naked and look in the mirror.  After all, we’ve all had someone change our diapers, and we likely will again…which reminds me of when I went in for my colonoscopy and attendant was a member of Grove Church.  She said she’d leave if I felt uncomfortable.  Well, it is not as there were lot of secrets in town anyway.  Frodo serves us well.  Thank you, Danville News – you’ve been our Frodo.

 

I fondly remember the greatest lesson I learned at seminary when training for pastoral service.  It was a lesson shown me by James I McCord, president of Princeton Seminary.  I was in the Princeton Hospital because, playing intramural football, I hit the ground and my arm fell off, so they had to stitch it back on.  Third degree shoulder separation.  I’m recovering from surgery when I look up and see the great man himself.  James McCord, all two hundred and eighty pounds of him.  The church revolved around his gravity.  James I. McCord:  internationally famous theologian, President of the finest seminary in the world, President of the World Alliance of Reformed Church, author of numerous books, world renown preacher. 

 

I look up at his from my bed, eyes glazed, and said rather stupidly, “What are you doing here?”

 

He looked at me, smiled, and said, “This is what it is about.”